


a shoulder to cry on

by emilieee



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt and comfort, LadyNoir - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:07:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25035946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilieee/pseuds/emilieee
Summary: When Ladybug finds Chat Noir crying by himself in the rooftops, she comes to a crossroad.Perhaps it's time to realize that her partner is much more important than their identities.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 42
Kudos: 380





	a shoulder to cry on

**Author's Note:**

> For day 1 of Ladynoir July: the wall between us.

Ladybug likes to think she knows her  _ chaton _ like the back of her hand. 

After all, how can she not? He’s her partner. He’s her other half. He’s her best friend. He’s saved her life; she’s saved his. Their mere  _ existence  _ is entwined in ways nobody else’s are. 

Yet here he is, crying alone into his arms in the most secluded corners of the rooftops, nearly hidden away in shadow. If Ladybug hadn’t been able to track him down with the GPS on her yo-yo, she never would’ve found him. Even  _ with  _ his exact location, it had been a minute or two before she’d spotted him in the little corner he was curled up in. 

“Chat Noir?” she calls tentatively. 

He lifts his head. In the dark, the only part of him that is fully visible is his eyes: they glow a bright green in the dark, a sheen of tears visible over them. 

Those eyes widen when he sees her, and then, abruptly, he buries his face back into his arms. 

“Don’t look at me,” Chat croaks hoarsely. No puns. No flirting. Not even a greeting. 

Ladybug knows him well enough to sense that something is very, very wrong. 

“ _ Chaton,”  _ she calls again, unsure of what else to do. “Hey, what’s wrong?” 

“It’s just—” His voice breaks slightly. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

It’s always been the other way around: Chat Noir, pulling goofy faces to cheer her up after particularly bad days. He doesn’t ask what happened; one look at her face and he  _ knows,  _ just like he knows the right things to say and the right time to say it. He knows how to coax laughter out of the grimmest situations, knows how to brighten up the grayest days—yet that’s all  _ him.  _

And now, with the situation reversed, Ladybug has no clue where to even start. 

“You can tell me, you know,” she tries. “What’s bothering you, that is. I’m… I’m a good listener.” 

Chat raises his head once more, long enough for her to see desperation and frustration and sadness and anger. “Tell you  _ what,  _ m’lady? Th-this is personal. I can’t tell you anything.” 

_ Oh.  _ His head ducks back to the original position, and Ladybug struggles to think of the words to say. Before she can say them, Chat’s hoarse voice pleads, “Don’t look at me,  _ please.  _ I don’t want you to see me like this.” 

There’s nothing she can do for him apart from oblige to that one request. So Ladybug makes her way around so that she’s sitting on the other side of the wall—enough that she’s still within earshot, but with distance to grant him his wish. 

The only sign that Chat Noir is still there are the occasional quiet sniffles. 

They sit in silence for a couple of unbearable minutes. Chat had obviously come up here to be alone, but for what reason, she doesn’t know— _ can’t  _ know, apparently. She knows he has his off days, but those are usually covered up with even more over-the-top flirting and ridiculous displays of self-confidence. 

Is it a healthy coping mechanism? Probably not, now that she thinks of it, but it had been manageable—she could roll her eyes, push his nose away and he’d laugh and that would be it. Now, everything she does feels wrong.  _ This  _ feels wrong. 

Between the duty to the Miraculous and her duty to him not as her superhero partner but best friend, it’s a hard scale to weigh. 

Ladybug takes a deep breath. “Chat,” she calls. 

His voice is still rough from crying when he answers. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“I  _ can’t,  _ Ladybug, you know that.” Desperation is wound tightly inside his voice. 

She leans back against the wall, staring out at the cityscape. It’s a familiar sight, one that she swings across with the boy who sits just behind the wall between them. The stone is cool against Ladybug’s back, just like the night air. They’re so awfully close to each other, but it _feels_ far because he’s not next to her. Instead, he’s separated by that cold barrier of their identities, of their responsibilities, their duty as heroes. For the sake of Paris, for this fight against Hawkmoth—that wall must remain there. 

But it’s unfair, is it not? To sacrifice every bit of themselves and not receive anything in return? It doesn’t need to be much, but right now, Ladybug  _ hates  _ the rules they’ve had to live by. 

The decision is a surprisingly easy one to make. “You can tell me, you know,” she says quietly. “What happened, that is.” 

Chat’s voice turns incredulous. “It’s personal. It would reveal too much—” 

“It’s okay.” Ladybug’s own voice shakes. She  _ knows  _ what she’s risking. But for once, something else—some _ one  _ else—takes precedence. “ _ Chaton,  _ you’re… you’re more important to me than our stupid identities, okay? If it gives you away, then screw it. I don’t care anymore.” 

Silence, once more. Ladybug wonders if she’s said the wrong thing. After so long of insisting for them to keep their identities secret, it’s not surprising he doesn’t want to talk about it. 

Then his voice breaks through the crisp night air, cutting through like a knife. “I had an argument with my father,” Chat Noir admits. “You see, my mom disappeared a while ago, and he was never the same since it happened. I learned to live with it, but…” The words tremble. “I guess it’s my fault for expecting more of him. And it’s stupid, because it’s not the first time he’s done this either. He’s busy running his company and going on trips and I would do well staying out of his way, but… I guess I’m just—” Another sniffle. “—disappointed, that’s all.” 

There’s not much Ladybug knows about Chat’s father apart from the fact that he’s awfully busy. Through the roughly patched up explanation, Ladybug  _ still  _ doesn’t know much—but she can piece together weeks and months and years of hurt in his voice. And his mother—she’d disappeared? A phantom pain unwinds in her chest as well, gripping tight and not letting go. 

So she gets up and moves around the wall. Chat Noir is still curled up in the same position: knees to his chest, his arms wrapped around his legs and forehead pressed against his arms. He raises his head at the sound of her footsteps. 

“Ladybug,” he whispers, “ _ please.  _ I—I look like a mess right now, a-and I don’t want—” 

She sits down beside him. “What you  _ need  _ is a shoulder to cry on,” she tells him. “I know I’ve been… well, I’ve been pretty strict about this stuff in the past and I’d like to think I have a reason to, but what’s the worst that could happen? I find out your identity? Maybe Master Fu was wrong, because we’ll find a way to work around that anyway.” 

Green eyes meet hers. “Do you mean that?” 

“Well,” Ladybug muses, adjusting her position so they’re side by side, her arms pressing against his. “I’m not saying we should be blurting our identities out just yet, but if you had a sucky day, it would be stupid of me to deny you a talk about it, right?” 

He looks at her, then what sounds like a sob and a laugh mixed together. “Alright.” 

Ladybug opens her arms, and Chat accepts the hug immediately. His arms wind tight around her waist, face buried against her shoulder, and he cries. 

So Ladybug lets him. 

She should’ve, a long time ago. But it’s not too late to start now. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [e-milieeee!](https://e-milieeee.tumblr.com/)


End file.
